I’ve been enjoying Doug Wilson’s reviews of Twilight. This morning I also discovered a book I’d never heard of, Elsie Dinsmore. It is available online.
Here’s a sample, after a spoiled brat of a boy gets her in trouble (and escapes all punishment himself):
In the meantime the little Elsie sat at her desk, striving to conquer the feelings of anger and indignation that were swelling in her breast; for Elsie, though she possessed much of “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit,” was not yet perfect, and often had a fierce contest with her naturally quick temper. Yet it was seldom, very seldom that word or tone or look betrayed the existence of such feelings; and it was a common remark in the family that Elsie had no spirit.
So, Edward basically is all of society and Elsie’s objective is to be dead, not sanctified in heaven, but a lifeless corpse that can never feel or be anything but utterly passive? As a dad, I have plenty of frustrations teaching children to control their tempers. But it is good to remember to be thankful that they do have spirit.
Elsie Dinsmore is horrible. Most of the time, the form which her paragon-behavior takes is trying really not hard to sin. Not doing good, not living the life of Christ in her, just “not sinning.” But it is widely promoted as an exemplary series for Christian girls. And I won’t even go into the legalism and the dysfunctional notions of Christian family relationships it promotes.
But these were huge best-sellers in their day! What do we do with that?
It wasn’t a great “day” for American evangelicalism back then, any more than it is now.
But maybe you’re being saracastic, as “Twilight” and “The Shack” are also huge bestsellers?
Not sarcastic exactly. Just amazed at how bad it was. Is it any wonder that such a Christian culture was not able to prosper?
The real zinger is that when she marries (a man slightly younger than her father) her husband to be declares that she shall not promise to obey him as part of her wedding vows because he would never ask her to submit to anything other than her own perfectly formed will….or some such nonsense.
Also, if I recall correctly Elsie assures her “mammy” that she will be white in heaven. I don’t usually call racist on people, but that is completely, offensively racist. We all know that Jesus has blond hair and blue eyes? Right?
Natalie, IIRC, she also tells her husband before the wedding that she will not obey him in anything if it opposes what her FATHER wants (quite clearly meaning her earthly father.) I don’t know how that squares with what you cited, and honestly I don’t remember that part, but it could well be. Maybe it’s a concession to that, that makes her husband make his declaration about her not needing to submit to him?
IIRC the thing about telling black people they would be white in Heaven came when she came of age and into possession of her mother’s family plantation. She went to visit it, and in typical Victorian do-gooder fashion went about comforting the poor, ignorant slaves. One of her primary means of comfort was to tell them they’d be white in Heaven.
The thing is, I could always sort of give a pass on the racism stuff. That is to say, it was awful, but it was so much a part of the culture that it was a blindspot, just as we have blindspots today. And it wasn’t so clearly promoted as the “definition of Christian character” the way so many other weirdnesses in the book were. One gets the impression that you could have shown Elsie from scripture why she was all wet about that, but her views of sanctification and authority were so fundamental to her understanding that she wouldn’t have been Elsie without them. But yeah, it was still bad.
Those were among the things I “wasn’t even going to bring up.” Oh, well. 🙂